The Simpson-Bowles (C)Omission

Jonny Dymond has a piece out pretending to analyze the recent joint-statement from Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. They’re understandably “gloomy” about Congress’s chances of making any kind of useful deal to avoid the US heading over the fiscal cliff after the ill-begotten debt agreement from last year expires. I say Dymond is pretending to analyze it because what he’s really doing is laying out a few White House talking points.

Fiscal cliff: Simpson and Bowles gloomy on deal chances

Dymond explains that everyone is really worried about what might happen if the intransigent Republicans don’t cooperate. Okay, he doesn’t say it exactly like that, but that’s the main point of his article. The worst problem with this piece is where he mentions that these guys were the head of the President’s Simpson-Bowles Commission in 2010, which came up with a plan (actually more like one with a set of options) to reduce the deficit and avoid having to go to the wall on the debt ceiling, as it were.

It wasn’t a bad plan, plenty of good things in there but, as Dymond says, it was never adopted. Except he doesn’t say why not. If it was so great that everyone is now hanging on their every word, why wasn’t it adopted? All you really learn from the Beeboid is that “disagreement” is bad, m’kay. So long as Congress (read: nasty Republicans, even though the Democrats controlled both houses for two years and the Senate for all four) doesn’t come to some agreement, we know whom to blame. In case anyone misses the point, Dymond closes with a quote from Bowles (Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff):

But from Mr Bowles comes a cold dose of Washington realism, and what seems to be the prime driver of his pessimism.

“There’s been no punishment,” he says, “for intransigence in this town.”

If I had a nickel for every time I saw that word used in this context…..

So why was this plan never passed? Because the President blew them off for purely ideological reasons. Dymond either doesn’t know that, or doesn’t think it’s important enough to mention. This is very curious as it’s the entire reason the two men made the press conference, and the entire reason Dymond was sent to do the report. But because mentioning that would make The Obamessiah look bad, or even remotely responsible for any problem, Dymond doesn’t mention it.

A DYMOND GEEZA!

Here’s a rather wonderful instance of anti GOP bias from our old pal, Jonny Dymond in which he characterises Obama’s opponents as the Party of  “old white America.” Gosh, that sounds almost a tad…racist. It seems that Jonny has concluded that the Democrats have the election won so perhaps Romney, Gingrich and co should just give up now and keep Obama in the White House? No agenda being pursued here, clearly.

Jonny Dymond’s Biased Sob Story

One of the battalion of Beeboids covering the US these days, Jonny Dymond, has just done an extremely one-sided collection of sob stories for Today about the struggles of the middle class.  He went to a couple of slowly dying cities in Connecticut to create his tapestry of woe, and his agenda is clear.

I say it’s one-sided not because there are tons of stories of rising successes for the middle class he could have provided in the interests of balance, but because of the way Dymond presents the situation in the first place.  Highly selective, and framed in a very narrow-minded fashion.  The whole story is presented as a case study in how the 2008 financial disaster and the subsequent recession has ravaged the middle class, the backbone of the US. But the agenda here is really to support the Occupiers’ cause.

Dymond starts out in a metal parts factory in Prospect, CT, where he wrings his hands over the plight of the workers.  They no longer get the guaranteed annual raises, or the constant overtime which pads the  regular paychecks of anyone on an hourly wage in any industry (especially including the public sector), so their American Dream, he opines, is on hold at best, and possibly even disappearing for good.
The factory boss also laments the plight of his employees.  But in the middle of all this, he casually mentions that Connecticut hasn’t actually has any net job increase in 20 years.  What does that have to do with 2008 or the recession?  He and one of his suffering employees also point out that the food prices and gas prices and taxes are going up and up, which makes things tough for those on an essentially fixed income.  Well, we can all guess what the standard BBC answer to that is:  they need pay rises.  Never mind that Connecticut ranks 47th in crushing taxes which hurt businesses and job growth.

The Tea Party movement – so disparaged by the BBC – wants to lower taxes, something that’s an anathema to Left-wingers like Dymond, so he doesn’t mention the idea. Nor does he mention that the Democrats who run the state recently enacted the largest tax increase in state history. (Over the last two decades, when the state wasn’t run by Democrats, it was run by Bush-style Big Government Republicans, the kind the Tea Party movement has been working to get rid of.) Dymond also better hope that none of these factory workers earn more than $50K pa, or have spouses earning a similar middle-class income, as the Democrats who run Connecticut recently raised state income taxes for both.  These aren’t even the “millionaires and billionaires” against whom the President often rails, either.

Food prices going up?  Even the Guardian admits that this is in large part due to the Warmists forcing biofuel down our throats, causing edible corn prices to skyrocket, which drives up everything else.  Who’s robbing the American dream here, Jonny?

One of those responsible is the Democrat former Senator, Chris Dodd, who was partially responsible for driving the mortgage crisis, and got a sweetheart deal from one of the failed sub-prime companies. Never mind all the campaign largesse he got from the industry.

One of the staples of the American Dream Dymond mentions is home ownership.  Well, he better hope none of his struggling middle class workers in Connecticut own homes these days, as the Democrats who run the state have made property taxes there 50% higher than the national average.  Sure, these geniuses think they’re doing to it soak the evil rich bankers and David Letterman who live within commuting distance of New York City, but the unintended consequence – as always in these cases – is that hurts the middle class most.  Dymond couldn’t be bothered to find this out, as it would detract from his Narrative.

If that’s not bad enough, they also just raised the state sales tax from 6% to 6.35% (still significantly lower than New York, but then New Jersey has no sales tax on retail good at all), and eliminated tax exemptions for all kinds of things which affect these middle class factory workers, like heating oil and the sacred property tax credit.  They even killed the tax exemption for products which help people quite smoking. At the same time, they jacked up taxes on cigarettes.  I hope none of those struggling factory workers smoke, or if they do they’re not thinking of quitting any time soon.  So much for the American Dream, eh, Jonny?  As we all know, and which the BBC has mostly kept from you, some states not controlled by Democrats have cut taxes and added jobs. Even New York, with the highest tax burden in the country, the Democrat Governor is trying to fix the budget without raising taxes. But that doesn’t help the Agenda, now, does it?  So don’t bring it up.

To tie it all together, Dymond goes to the city of Hartford to meet up with his darling Occupiers.  He manages to find one of them who hasn’t pulled a knife on someone.  This Occupier laments that we’ve all been lied to, that there’s no such thing as the American Dream.  What Dymond fails to realize is that this, just like the factory bosses’ statement about no net job growth for the last 20 years, also has nothing to do with the recent financial crisis and recession. This Occupier means that there has never been an American Dream available to everyone willing to work for it.  He’s not talking about a temporary rough time we need to fix at all.

This keeps happening with BBC reports on this issue.  On the one hand they say that the Occupy movement is inspired by anger at the greedy bankers who caused the financial crisis that everyone else has to pay for.  Ask yourself how many times you’ve heard someone (usually a trade union mouthpiece or Labour politician or Robert Peston) say that people are being forced to pay for a crisis they didn’t cause. On the other hand, they moan about income inequality and corporate greed. But if this is all anger at a recent phenomenon, why do the Occupiers keep saying that this has always been a problem, and everything has always been bad?  It’s because the BBC keeps misleading you about the whole story, as Dymond is doing here.

This is a very biased report.  Everything is framed from one side of the issue, and facts which detract from the Narrative are swept under the rug.

The Knives Are Out At The BBC: It’s U.S. Election Time Again

The second-most important election in human history is a mere 445 days away, and the BBC is already focused on informing you how awful the President’s potential opponents are. They’re especially focused on telling you how awful the people are who will vote against Him.

The BBC Narrative picks up right where it left off after the mid-term elections last November: racialism and fear-mongering about Christian Evangelicals.

The first sentence of Jane O’Brien’s report on the poll features her calling the winner, Michelle Bachmann, “the latest darling of the Tea Party”. I’m still waiting for a defender of the indefensible to show me an example of any Beeboid referring to a Labour or Democrat figure as anyone’s “darling”. It’s a pejorative, plain and simple, yet seems to be firmly established in the BBC style guide and is used time and again in this fashion with apparently full approval by the BBC’s editorial policy. And this is what’s used to start a BBC report allegedly intending to impartially inform you about a story.

Bachmann, O’Brien informs us, “narrowly” won the poll. How narrow? We aren’t told. Who came in second? We aren’t told. The next potential opponent of the President O’Brien mentions wasn’t even in the poll: Rick Perry. The only other name mentioned is Mitt Romney, who also didn’t even take part in the Iowa poll. Already the actual agenda is revealed here. This isn’t a report about the Iowa poll at all, or what the results mean: it’s about casting a harsh light on threats to The Obamessiah.

The BBC actually did a whole separate report on Perry already, so what’s the point of bringing him into what’s supposed to be a report about the Iowa scene? Iowa wasn’t the point at all, of course. It’s just an excuse for a BBC editor to tell his correspondent to do a quick report on who might be the potential threat to the President. Which they’re already doing elsewhere, as we’ll see in a moment. In other words, this was a complete waste of time, unless one has a specific agenda.

In fact, Michelle Bachmann won by a mere 152 votes. Congressman Ron Paul came in a close second. Tim Pawlenty came in third, and then dropped out of the race altogether. He never had much of a chance anyway. The three candidates pictured in this HuffingtonPost article aren’t even mentioned by the BBC at all. The actual results, out of a possible 16,892 votes:

1. Rep. Michelle Bachmann: 4,823 (29%)

2. Rep. Ron Paul: 4,671 (28%)

3. Tim Pawlenty: 2,293 (14%)

4. Rick Santorum: 1,657 (1o%)

5. Herman Cain: 1,456 (9%)

6. Write-in votes for Rick Perry, who wasn’t even a candidate yet: 781

7. Write-in votes for Mitt Romney, who skipped Iowa entirely: 567

8. Newt Gingrich: 385

9. Write-in votes for John Hunstman, Jr. who also skipped Iowa: 69

10. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter: 35

Notice who came in 5th, and remember it for later.

So Rep. Paul came in a very close second, barely off the margin of error, and not a single word about him from the BBC. Why? Quite simply because they’ve already written him off. Remember, the Beeboids believe that their mission isn’t really to inform you but to interpret stories for you, so you know what to think about them. You don’t need to know what actually happened at all. Paul has a devoted following. His advocates are very dedicated, hardcore, and like all extremely motivated groups are able to put a good number of bodies on the ground for things like this. That doesn’t mean his result here will translate into equal results on a national scale, but it’s worth telling you that. Imagine if he does rather better for a while than the BBC expects. He’ll be up there as a top contender, and you’ll all be going: “Who the hell is that? I thought Rick Perry came in second in Iowa or something?” Just like, for so many at the BBC, the Tea Party movement “came out of nowhere” (© Emily Maitlis during mid-term election coverage for BBC News on Nov. 2, 2010).

This is the inherent danger of trying to create, as the departed Matt Frei put it, “a rapport” with an entire country, rather than just straight-up reporting. The BBC should have just done a simple news brief on the actual results, with a couple paragraphs about the whos and whys of the top three or five. Job done, public informed, context provided for the larger picture, then move on to the big fish.

As others have already pointed out on the latest Open Thread, the first thing on Jonny Dymond’s agenda (after scoring some drugs, that is) is to tell you that the Iowa Straw Poll attendees are mostly white. Apparently he’s the new North America correspondent to replace Kevin “Teabaggers” Connolly, who has taken his own bias to the Middle East.

The reason to point out their skin color, of course, is simple: to create the impression that, whatever these voters want, it’s not “representative”, as Dymond makes sure to point out, of the rest of the country. Also, ultimately there is a racist subtext here, as we must always remember that racism is of course a primary motivating factor in opponents of the President. But, you may well ask, why didn’t Dymond or any other Beeboid cry “racism” about Herman Cain’s fifth place showing? Well, they don’t like him because he stated in the last debate that he didn’t want Shariah Law to become part of US law, and previously said that he’d want to know if any potential Muslim cabinet member of his supported jihad. You see, the BBC is capable occasionally of seeing past skin color when it suits them. But, as we saw over and over again in the BBC’s reporting on the 2008 Presidential election (the most important election in human history, from the way they covered it), and in their early reporting on the Tea Party movement, when it comes to a black man who holds the approved thoughts, any opponents have racism as at least a partial motivation. Like when Dymond describes the crowd as “white” in the same sentence he says they “really, really want to get rid” of the President. There is no escaping what he’s done here. Racism is clearly a card for them to play at the appropriate time, and their opinion on the matter is based on emotion and not facts.

Although, sometimes the BBC approves of and understands people who vote for their own ethnic group.

As for the demonization of the candidates themselves, note how Dymond and his editor frame their statements. Do the Beeboids ever use the term “red meat” when reporting on Labour or Democrat events? Dymond gets in an early scary code word: “revivalist” as a sort of subliminal set-up for the Narrative. It’s interesting that twice we hear the word “freedom” from the unnamed speaker celebrating Bachmann’s victory, yet the Narrative you’re given from Dymond and the rest of the Beeboids covering this is that religion is the key.

The problem is that the three vox pops featured have nothing to do with race or religion, but talk instead about economic concerns. It’s very clever how the BBC plays this. They give you the vox pops, the actual opinions of the voters, so they can claim impartiality in that they’ve provided the balance of opposing views. But Dymond and his editor bookend these statements with his racialist qualifier and then afterward by saying that Bachmann is popular because she’s a “social conservative”. Did anyone hear that given as a reason in the vox pops? No. It’s almost as if the BBC is telling you not to listen to them. The Beeboids sure as hell don’t, so why should you, eh?

Naturally, the bit of Bachmann’s speech they let you hear is the religious stuff. This is the BBC Narrative in action, making you forget all about the actual statements of the voters. Then he skips the rest of Iowa to talk about the same thing O’Brien did: someone they see as the real potential threat to their beloved Obamessiah, Rick Perry. In case there’s any doubt about the agenda here, the title of Dymond’s piece is about how the Republicans “lash Obama”. Do you need to know what happened? What the voters really want? What the candidates are really about? No. All you need to know is that they’re white, Christian, and are attacking the President. All this silly economics stuff the country has been talking about is by the by. Social Conservatism is the real issue here for the BBC. I guess that means Justin Webb’s book about its “strange death” was a load of BS? Nah, it was that kind of brilliant insight which got him the Today seat.

In case there are any lingering doubts about the BBC’s agenda here, and what they want you to think is the real problem, just read the first words at the top of their piece on Rick Perry:

Perry led 30,000 worshipers at a prayer rally

Yes, of course the excuse here is that the video clip is of Perry at a prayer rally. What about his actual track record as Governor of Texas? Did he turn the state into an Evangelical theocracy or what?

To his supporters, he’s the man who fixed Texas and can answer the country’s economic prayers. Could Rick Perry, who has announced his intention to enter the presidential race, overcome his doubters and end up in the White House?

Oops, the focus is on the economy here. Must switch gears.

The Texas governor ticks many of the boxes on the party’s wishlist. He’s a socially conservative Christian with a record of cutting spending, who can boast that he restored to health the finances of the second largest state in the US, without raising taxes.

There, that’s better. But hey, what’s that about solving the state’s economic problems without raising taxes? The BBC never mentioned this during the whole debt ceiling agreement saga. Curious.

Mr Perry also shares one important quality with his other main Republican rival, Michele Bachmann, who topped a straw poll in the crucial state of Iowa at the weekend. They can both fire up an audience, as he demonstrated a week ago at a prayer rally in Houston which left some of the 30,000 worshippers in tears.

Prayer. And, horrifyingly, he left people in tears over whatever Christian stuff he was talking about. See, it was okay when The Obamessiah went to church. It was okay when He spoke with black church leaders. Did anyone ever see such an emphasis on His Christianity? No. In fact, it had to be played down a bit because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright problem.

Here’s the thing. I’m not saying that the religion and social conservative thing is a non-issue in the US, or trying to make you think that it’s not at all important to non-Leftoid voters or anything of the sort. What I’m saying is that it’s not the most important issue at all, and that over and over again we hear from the public that the economy is the number one concern which dwarfs all other issues, while the BBC continues to frame things as being the other way round.

Getting back to the piece on Perry, though, it’s amusing to see the BBC suddenly remember that someone was fixing economic problems with the kind of small-government attitude the BBC was denigrating so recently. The problem for the BBC here, though, is that Perry might start looking too good to the reader, so they make sure to bring out the big guns: he’s only “Bush on steroids”. This is enough to strike fear into the heart of any Beeboid, and they expect in your hearts as well. Actually, Bush was barely a small-government kind of President. He let Congress ramp up all kinds of debt under his watch, and was too powerless to stop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Frank/Dodd to blow up the mortgage bubble which led to all our current woes. But that’s not what the BBC wants you to remember. Just remember how much you hated Bush for being a Christian and a social conservative.

When it comes to Michelle Bachmann, the Beeboids are confused about what to do with her. They’ve already admitted that they can’t play her as a buffoon like they do with Sarah Palin. But they’re clearly scared of her, and it makes their reporting look a little silly at times. Rajesh Mirchandani (how many Beeboids are covering the US scene these days?) opens his report by speaking of her “fiery rhetoric”. And what bit of this rhetoric does the BBC provide for you in the video?

“Barack Obama will be a one-term President!”

Oooh, scary. This is only “fiery rhetoric” if one is a die-hard supporter of the President whom she’s trying to unseat. Surely with all the footage available of her the BBC could have found something a little stronger. That would mean, though, that they think this isn’t strong enough. Clearly they do, and went with it, which is a bit silly.

But hey, at least he only called her a “favorite” of the Tea Party movement and not a “darling”. Then Mirchandani is off to talk about Perry again. Redundancy ‘R’ Us at the BBC. That’s now three Beeboids making the exact same report but with slightly different words. The only thing different is the aegis under which each report is made. The results, though, seem to be exactly the same.

No discussion of the BBC’s coverage of the US (read: coverage of anything which might affect the President) is complete without the BBC North America editor, Mark Mardell. Just back from his hols, Mardell gives us an idea of the impression he’s gotten of the public mood.

The Republican race has moved a little closer to the finishing line while I’ve been taking a few days’ break on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Bad timing, but it reinforced some of my views about next year’s election. More on that in a moment.

Um, has anything not reinforced his views on the US? Ever? Mardell says this about Bachmann and Perry:

They are tailoring their message to the times.

Are they, now?

But for all the Tea Party movement’s insistence that it is about fiscal responsibility and economic conservatism, these two candidates are both evangelical Christians, with a strong line on social conservatism. Perry signed a law that makes a woman about to have an abortion look at an image of her foetus. The stand out question to Bachmann in last week’s debate was whether she still believed, for religious reasons, that a woman should be “submissive” to her husband, and how that would touch the authority of the commander in chief.

Bingo! That’s all three elements on my score card: Evangelical Christian, social conservatism, and abortion. Narrative? What Narrative? What about the economy? Jobs? Small government? Nope, not interested. Scare-mongering against Christians is what works best. Wake me up when a Beeboid takes a similar tone about a Muslim candidate in Britain. But see, Mardell knows all too well what he’s doing, and has a handy riposte:

The right has attacked the media for focusing on such questions. But it is the media’s job to look at weakness, and it may be that social conservatism is not the priority of most Americans right now.

Yes, it may be. But that’s not stopping him as he simply doesn’t care. His opinions have been reinforced, remember. Mardell gives a brief description – in class war terms, naturally – of the area in which he vacationed, and then says this:

We didn’t meet anyone who was following the Republican race. But we did meet plenty of bewilderment at DC politicians and the state of the economy.

Well, thank goodness he didn’t run into any nasty old Republicans to ruin his vacation. And notice how he cleverly makes the problem into a bi-partisan one, shifting blame as always away from the President.

There was a couple running a bar who still seemed slightly surprised they were having their best three business years ever, but worried about what would happen next. There was the woman in the state park depressed and ashamed about the state of America, its education system, and the difficultly of setting up a business.

Whose fault are these oppressive regulations and taxes on small businesses, Mark? It sure ain’t the Republicans, who have been calling for less and less of it. But he still tries to play it as just a generic Washington problem.

There were late night drinks on the balcony of a motel with a Democrat who still had faith in Obama, but shook his head over the state of the economy.

They do seek out their own kind, don’t they? I’m sure Mardell doesn’t even realize what this says about him.

There is huge uncertainty in this country. Wise candidates will focus on that, as well as the more concrete issue of jobs.

Then why the constant focus on Evangelical Christians and social conservatism? Oh, that’s right, since the BBC audience can’t vote in US elections, the real agenda is to demonize the lot of them, and the voters along with them, so you know whom to hate and why when we don’t vote for The Obamessiah.

The stage is now set for future BBC reporting on the 2012 election. All these reports, all these Beeboids working on your dime, one clear Narrative.

Jonny Dymond And The BBC Want To Inspire Your Hatred

In the Open Thread, Anthony Masters calls our attention to Jonny Dymond’s hate-mongering piece about an alleged “explosion” in hate groups in the US because we have a black President. Stop me if you’ve heard this Narrative before…..

I say it’s hate-mongering and not reporting, because the intent here is to make you hate millions of people like me by falsely associating them with a few ugly extremists. This isn’t about raising awareness of anti-Semitism or racism: it’s about creating the impression in your minds that any opposition to anything done by a black President is due to racism and extremism rather than any legitimate policy concerns. There is no valid journalistic reason for this report.

Dymond’s only real source for this story is the Southern Poverty Law Center. Well, while it used to be a respectable advocacy group with a history of fighting the Klan, it’s come to resemble a far-Left hate group with a pro-Democrat agenda in the last few years. They started this Narrative that we’re all out to get the black man over two years ago, and don’t care about facts. They’ve become a propaganda outlet, so it’s only natural that the BBC would look to them for information.

Here’s all you need to know about the SPLC:

Southern Poverty Law Center Still Peddling Lie That Giffords Shooter Was Right-Winger


What a shock: it’s the same lie the BBC peddled. (Bias bonus: Rachel Kennedy tweeted a link to the HuffPo to support the lie.)

Unlikely Foes

A group of leading genocide scholars this month sent the center a stinging letter, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, that charges the center with getting out of a lawsuit in part by assisting “unscholarly and unethical” efforts to cast doubt on the Armenian genocide.

They’re even being sued over libel on this issue:

Scholar’s libel suit proceeds against Southern Poverty Law Center

Guenter Lewy’s very interesting libel case against the Southern Poverty Law Center can proceed in the District of Columbia, a trial judge ruled Tuesday.

This one is worth watching.

Lewy is an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. A survivor of German violence against Jews during World War II, Prof. Lewy has written numerous books and articles about the history of persecuted peoples. In 2005, the University of Utah Press published his book, “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide.”

Dymond and the Beeboid who hooked him up with the SPLC probably have no idea. It’s not important to the Narrative.

Does the Southern Poverty Law Center think Barack Obama is spreading hate?

They’re adding 13 new groups to the list of hate groups for opposing homosexuality. Now some of those groups do appear to be a bit extreme, but others such as the Family Research Council and National Organization for Marriage are hardly outside the political mainstream, and still others seem to be condemned by the SPLC for no reason other than adhering to biblical teaching on homosexuality.

This is perfect fodder for Dymond. Don’t agree with the BBC’s core values? You’re an extremist and hater. (Unless you’re Muslim, that is.)

Liberals desperate to connect the Tea Party with domestic terrorism

Tea Party leaders say a series of reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attempting to connect the Tea Party movement with domestic terrorists in the militia movement shows how desperate the left has become trying to stop the political juggernaut.

The group says individuals such as Glenn Beck, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — all regulars at major Tea Party gatherings — have given widespread visibility for ideas espoused by the militia movement, or the “Patriot movement” as SPLC calls it.

No wonder Max Deveson or someone similar sent Dymond to the SPLC to form the foundation of his report. Too bad they’re not very reliable these days.

The SPLC said there was a big KKK rise in Rhode Island, but police found no evidence.

In short, the BBC had a Narrative they wanted to establish in your minds, the same one they pushed down your throats before the 2008 election, and the same one they shoved down after it about the rise of the Tea Party movement. Now that their beloved Obamessiah is in trouble, they’re doing the exact same thing again. They had a story they wanted to tell, so some Beeboid in the US hooked Dymond up with the SPLC. These people see racists and extremists in every closet, under every bed. Everywhere except where they really ought to look.

Where were they when Leftoids were calling for the lynching of a black Supreme Court Justice?

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues. Ever.